


Sweet tooth

by AllotropicBi



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Edmonton Oilers, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mini Bakery/College AU, the subpairing is the best pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 11:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13974477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllotropicBi/pseuds/AllotropicBi
Summary: “Hey, Angel Cakes, what would you like today?”





	Sweet tooth

**Author's Note:**

> New username, same trashy ho! Wanted to abandon my bandom username, so here we are.  
> Welcome back, glad to have some content for you! Sorry our season is tanking and that people thought it was ok to trade Patty. I am a sad child. 
> 
> Shoutout to Jay, the loml and my cheerleader that means the world to me. And to India, AKA lesbian????. And of course, forever to [bluenorth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluenorth/pseuds/bluenorth).

Leon smiles warmly as he puts a fresh cinnamon bun into a box, the warm, tantalizing scent reminding him that he’s well overdue for his break. He rings up his last customer for the time being, sliding a coffee across the counter before untying his apron.

“Thanks for working a bit longer,” Adam says, letting out a long breath. “I hate Friday afternoon shifts.”

“They’re pretty demanding,” Leon agrees, watching his coworker wipe the counter. He checks the clock, seeing that it’s now four-thirty. “You sure you’re okay to handle the rest?”

“Yeah, Oscar should be in any minute now.”

“Loverboy is late, huh?” Leon teases. Adam rolls his eyes, tossing an empty straw sleeve just past Leon’s head.

“He had a midterm, it’s not his fault.”

Leon laughs, taking his pick of food from the display. “Excuses, excuses.”

He picks up his phone from his locker and heads out to the front, finding an empty table tucked away in a corner. It’s busy, but the din of the bakery is pretty commonplace for him now. He only started working at Angel Cakes a year and a half ago, a few months after it first opened near the university campus. He wasn’t really looking for a job, but his friend Adam was, and it was about a week before he roped Leon into applying, too. He’s thankful the hours are flexible and the pay is gratuitous, because he’s in his last year of a chemistry major, and he could use all the leeway he can get.

He’s wrapped up in the latest reading he has for his Classics course, biting absent mindedly into a fresh cheese and onion pasty. He’s too absorbed to even register that the cheese is just this side of too hot, burning his tongue, and doesn’t pay any notice to the three boys that plop down onto the table next to his. At least, that is, not until one of them groans loudly and exclaims, “God, I’m going to marry this bread. This bread is my new husband.”

Leon’s mouth quirks into a smile when he looks over, taking a second to scope out what’s on their table. He spots a small plate of some breads, two of the guys with their own pick of dessert. Leon approves of their choices, looking away before someone can notice and call him out for creeping.

“Oh, man, just wait until you get a taste of their cheesecake,” one of them says, reaching for a mohnbrötchen and putting a swipe of butter on it.

The boy that decided he was now in matrimony with a piece of bread reaches greedily for the slice of cheesecake that’s on the table, but one of his friends quickly pulls it away. “Nuh uh, Connor, you’re getting your own. You avoided coming here with us for so long, that’s what you get.”

Connor frowns, but more than happily returns to his rye bread. Leon subconsciously watches as Connor swipes his tongue across his lower lip to catch some crumbs, causing a swoop in Leon’s stomach. He turns back to his book and rolls his eyes at an account of Heaphestus’ amateurish advances on Athena.

“You forget the real reason we kept trying to bring him here.”

“Oh, come on, don’t start this again, Nursey,” Connor groans.

“Listen, we’re just trying to help you out.”

“I’m in the arts, if I wanted to find a boyfriend, I don’t think it would be that hard.”

Nursey scoffs. “Yeah, sure, because history is the best kind of arts to scope out a date. And let’s be real, it would be hard with you.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“Tell him, Pat,” Nursey says, sounding like he’s told the story ten too many times to want to repeat it himself.

“I’m not getting involved,” Pat says.

“Oh please, like you didn’t come here just for this.”

Leon blinks at the book that’s gone out of focus, frowning as he looks back up the page and realizes he hasn’t absorbed a word. He goes back to the last sentence he remembers reading and tries to refocus himself.

It works for all of two minutes, and then Leon’s ears are tuned into their conversation yet again, mostly because Leon thinks Connor laughed, and he wants to hear it again. He groans internally and picks up his book and food, ducking into the back room. At least he can get something done there.

~

Once his break is over, Leon grabs his apron and comes back out front, mourning how dark it is outside already. He doesn’t hate winter as such, but the short days get to be pretty depressing when it’s as cold as it is.

“You ever think it was a mistake placing a bakery so close to campus?”

“Always,” Adam replies, throwing Leon a disgruntled look. “But it makes for good money, and good money means higher wages.”

“For now,” Leon says ominously. “Who knows when the greedy capitalists will take over and cut us back down to minimum wage.”

Adam shakes his head. “Thankfully the owners aren’t greedy. Get back to work, there’s a customer.”

Leon clicks his tongue, considering pointing out that Adam’s slacking too, but he leaves it be.

The standard, mundane greeting is, “Hey, welcome to Angel Cakes, what would you like today?” Leon saves it for his least inspired days, when separatory funnels and acetone washes have rendered his brain numb, but he finds himself scrambling for it when he comes face to face with Connor. Connor, who has alarmingly pretty green eyes.

“Hey, Angel Cakes, what would you like today?” Leon fumbles.

Oh, _hell_ no.

There’s absolutely no coming back from that. Leon grimaces and drops his eyes to Connor’s green and gold university hoodie.

“Uh.”

Leon hears some snickering and glances over to near where he was sat earlier, and lo and behold, Connor’s friends are watching intently. Naturally, Leon thinks. Because this is a set up.

“Let’s roll with it,” Leon decides, eyes flashing with mischief, grinning at Connor. “I can call you a _brezel_ , if you prefer.”

Connor laughs nervously, blinking generously before stammering, “Uh, y-yeah, I’m more of a savoury person, I guess.”

“I don’t know, you seem pretty sweet to me,” Leon says, fighting hard against the urge to wink. He relishes in the awkward pink blotches that colour Connor’s skin, most noticeable on his neck.

Leon yelps when his leg crumbles from beneath him, turning around to find Adam walking away from him after having executed a perfect dead-leg. Adam shoots an innocent smile over his shoulder, and Leon scowls at him.

“Sorry about that,” Leon says perkily, flashing a stunning smile. “What would you like?”

“My friend recommended the cheesecake,” Connor answers, lifting the end of the sentence so that it sounds more like a question than a statement.

Leon studies Connor’s face, the untamed beard creeping its way down Connor’s neck, his dishevelled hair pointing in all directions. “And do you want that? Or will you let me experiment with you?”

Connor’s eyebrows lift, his lips turning into a curious smile. “What does that mean?”

“I’m trying to see if I can pick out desserts for people based on my first impression of them.”

“… Should I trust you with that?”

Leon laughs and nods. “I promise. If you don’t like it, it’s on me.”

“And if I do?”

Leon realizes that the correct, obvious answer here is to point out that Connor has to pay, but he is also really, really liking Connor’s blend of flirtation and awkwardness, and he’s not about to give up the gig that easily. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” Leon says, dropping his voice a touch. It seems to have the desired effect, if Connor’s deep inhale is any indication.

“Here,” Leon says, bringing out a powdered-sugar-dusted confectionary and placing it onto a small plate. “A berliner. It’s like a jam doughnut, but better.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” Connor asks.

Leon shrugs. “Because it’s German.”

Connor takes the plate, fishing his wallet from his back pocket. “That’s a good point.”

“Keep your money,” Leon insists when Connor tries to hand him a five-dollar bill. “I told you, see if you like it first.”

“It’s sweet, right?” Connor asks, looking behind him to make sure there aren’t any other customers waiting. Leon nods. “Then you might have to treat me to this one, after all,” Connor says with a quick smirk, turning around and going back to his table where he receives a round of back pats. Leon lets out a long-suffering sigh and blows some hair out of his eyes.

Adam slaps a hand on Leon’s shoulder and says, “Love costs, man.”

“Do you want me to tell Oscar you said that?” Leon retorts. Adam feigns being wounded, so Leon takes off to follow through on his threat.

Oscar just laughs when Leon tells him and says, “Yeah, I know. Larss made me foot the bill for our last date because he missed a shift to finish an essay.” There’s no spite in it, though, and even if there was, it would have been dampened by the sappy look he and Adam share a moment later.

Leon will chirp them for it after, no doubt, but for a second he envies them. Unthinkingly, he looks over to Connor’s table, only to find Connor looking back at him. Connor immediately looks away, but not fast enough that Leon misses his flushed cheeks. Leon’s chest feels light and fluttery in a way it hasn’t in a long while.

Connor and his friends stay there for a while, caught between studying and giving each other shit for not knowing the answers to surprise questions they’re springing on each other. Leon suppresses the urge to go over and ask Connor if he was right about his choice or not, instead focussing his energies on keeping Oscar and Adam off of each other for the remainder of their shifts. They’re usually not so bad, but Leon thinks he’s going to have to talk to the manager about putting them on separate shifts, or at least not making Leon suffer through it.

A few times throughout the evening, Connor meets Leon’s eyes, and as the uncertainty builds up, Leon finds that he’s the one that feels nervous and like he would be blushing, if he was the type to.

An hour before close, Connor and his friends get up and start making their way out. Connor suffers a few whistles and shoves towards the counter from Nursey and Pat, smiling at the ground before he steps up to the counter. “I guess I owe you,” Connor says, putting his cash in front of Leon.

Leon frowns. “You’ve got good taste. I never said you had to pay me in cash, though,” Leon says coyly, ignoring the flare of triumph that sparks in him over having sussed Connor out.

“So, if I’m not paying in cash, then…” Connor trails off, unsure of what to make of Leon’s cryptic reply.

Leon wets his lips, noticing with a satisfaction that courses through him that Connor follows the motion. “How’s about you let me take you out for coffee some time?”

Connor breaks into a grin that he can’t hold back, turning into his shoulder until he can turn down the wattage on his dorky smile. Leon’s stomach flutters happily. “But then you’d still be paying,” Connor points out.

“Hey, you’d be giving me the pleasure of your company,” Leon says cheerily, aware of how cheesy it sounds. Adam, fucker that he is, snorts right behind Leon, complaining when Oscar drags him away.

“As much as I’d like the treat, I think I’m the one that should be taking you out for coffee.”

Leon’s smile twitches with the unfamiliar nerves he’s feeling, trying his best to keep his cool. “This could go on all night. How’s about this: I’ll take your number as an IOU and we can figure out who’s taking who out later.”

Connor seems to like that idea, accepting the pen that Leon gives him and scribbling down his name and number on a napkin. “If you don’t text me I’ll be too embarrassed to show my face here and give you guys my money ever again, so…” Connor says awkwardly.

Leon’s smile wanes, and he takes the napkin from Connor, letting his fingers brush against Connor’s. “Oh boy, I guess I’ll _have_ to text you for the sake of keeping the business running,” Leon teases.

Connor laughs. “Yeah, because I’ve been a really well-paying customer so far. I should, uh,” Connor mutters, pointing towards the exit with his thumb. “My friends are probably getting cold.”

“Sure thing, Connor. I’ll make sure there’s some steamy bread fresh from the oven next time you’re in,” Leon teases.

“You should probably leave before this is no longer age-appropriate,” Adam chimes in over Leon’s shoulder. Connor flushes, and leaves Leon with one last small smile. Leon’s still watching Connor leave when Adam says, “That’s coming out of your pay, I hope you know that.”

Leon looks down at the napkin in his hands before folding it up and popping it into his pocket. Even on a student budget, Leon decides the risk was worth the cost. He looks out the window and catches Connor looking back into the shopfront one last time, and ignores Adam’s commentary, watching until Connor goes out of sight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, babes!  
> FYI this is a oneshot, if someone wants to collaborate and get a bigger thing going, hmu on twitter (justfortrs) or tumblr (buckstille)!  
> I am, however, working on a bigger project right now and hoping to complete it before all the snow melts. Unlikely with the pleasant weather we are somehow getting right now.  
> Have a fabulous week, hope the Oilers don't play like shit today :) (trust me I DO love them)


End file.
